Muslim American/American Muslim Identity: Authoring Self in Post-9/11 America

Abstract

This paper examines the proposition that Muslim American identity, whether as individual or group identity, is "forged" and "forced" by the American experience that brings together immigrant and American-born Muslims from diverse cultural backgrounds and disparate understandings of Islam. It is here that the histories of the "Muslim world" and the "West", nationalism, inter-generational struggles, and the politics of race/ethnicity, gender, and class come into contact. American Muslim becomes part of a discursive contact zone where America and Islam are debated and defined. This paper analyzes how self-image and (re)presentations in this contact zone are contested and constructed by a group of Muslims in Phoenix, Arizona. Specifically, it addresses the following questions: What does "American Muslim"/"Muslim American" mean? What do such labels conceal or reveal about the convergence of history, politics, national identity, and Muslims' multi-factorial diversity? How does life as a Muslim in Arizona differ from what it was on September 10th, 2001? Data gathered from this ethnographic project reveal three emerging themes. (1) Muslims in Phoenix perceive that the Islam practiced in America is "more authentic" than that practiced in Muslim-majority countries.(2) They fear that their religious faith is under attack and their loyalty to America is under suspicion. (3) The meaning of the American Muslim /Muslim American label has not yet crystallized.

“Being Wholly Muslim and Wholly American”: Exploring One Islamic School's Efforts to Educate against Extremism

“…It is through Muslims' participation in mosques where newly arrived immigrants worship alongside second, third, and fourth generation Muslim families, and where they conceptualize and negotiate their individual identities in U.S. society (Sirin & Fine, 2008). Ali (2011) describes this interaction as both forging and forcing individual Muslims to adapt through these communal experiences. Layered on top of this melding is the larger social construction of Muslims as hostile, dangerous, and un-American (Byng, 2008).…”

News Framing as Identity Performance

“…While American-Muslims are commonly perceived as a homogeneous, monolithic group (Kumar, 2010; Said, 1981), Witteborn (2007) shows that their self-identifications could vary across religious (e.g., Muslim and Christian), sectarian (e.g., Sunni and Shiite), national (e.g., Palestinian and Egyptian), and hybrid (e.g., Lebanese American and Arab American) dimensions, “depending on the audience, the setting, and the sociopolitical scene” (p. 562). On similar lines, Ali (2011) argues that “the histories of the ‘Muslim world’ and the ‘West,’ nationalism, inter-generational struggles, and the politics of race/ethnicity, gender, and class come into contact” (p. 355) in the practice of American-Muslim identity. Indeed, American-Muslim self-identification has become even more fluid and amorphous post-9/11 (Alsultany, 2012; Shaheen, 2008; Sirin & Fine, 2007).…”

Anger among Chinese migrants amid COVID-19 discrimination: The role of host news coverage, cultural distance, and national identity

“…If this information is incongruent, such as in the face of negative media stereotyping of one’s ingroup, people would reinforce their group identification for collective changes. The best case-in-point is how Muslim Americans sought responses to identity threats when perceiving negative media representations of their religious ingroup [ 65 ], and felt their religious identity was under attack after 9/11 [ 66 ]. Other research has explored the possibility for the negative media effect on the Muslim identity to carry over to the Palestinian diaspora in the UK as a result of shared religious belief [ 67 ].…”